BIRD MYTHS. 



l.—CORVUS, THE CROW. 



HE is a black, unmusical bird, and in 

 our land and generation has a worse 

 reputation, perhaps, than he deserves. The 

 Bible account of Noah's raven is very in- 

 teresting, and that raven was a crow. 



The Siamese have an old fable concern- 

 ing the crow. Once, it declares, he was far 

 handsomer than he now is. One unlucky 

 day he chanced for the first time to meet a 

 nok-j'unk; that is a peacock, one of the birds 

 called sacred in mythology. Then Corvus 

 felt envious of peacock's magnificent plumes, 

 and he foolishly asked the proud peafowl if 

 he might not be dressed as richly as him- 

 self. The peacock good-naturedly answer- 

 ed that it could easily be done, telling Cor- 

 vus that he would cover him all over with 

 silver and gold, as men gild and adorn 

 wooden and other images of many kinds. 



The ambitious crow gladly assented, and 

 his grand cousin proceeded to smear his 

 feathers with black pitch, which the pea- 

 fowl said was necessary to make the gold 

 and silver tinsel adhere to them. 



After doing so much, the peacock must 

 take a journey to procure the bright ma- 

 terials for "finishing" the crow elegantly. 

 When he returned Corvus was feeding upon 

 a dead animal, as was perfectly natural 

 for him, but the sacred, refined, and splen- 

 did peacock was shocked and displeased, 

 and so he declined to gild the feathers he 

 had blackened. Thus all ravens which in 

 natural history are crows, have, since that 

 unknown time, inherited only black plum- 

 age, unless by a freak of nature one has 

 white feathers, as a black cat mother may 

 have white kittens. 



The common crow of Europe was named 

 Corvus splendens by naturalists. This grand 

 title seems to agree with another legend, 

 that asserts that all ravens or crows were 

 by nature purely white, and that they lost 

 their fair beauty in consequence of their 



meddlesome curiosity; a quality dangerous 

 for any of us to indulge ! 



In early times among the Greeks and 

 Romans, the children of the wealthy had 

 many kinds of birds for pets. The crow or 

 rarven was one of their favorites. 



In mythology (mythical religion) there 

 was a raven called the Bird of Saturn, who 

 brought many calamities to the earth ; and 

 so, in time, the poets sang dolefully of these 

 dark birds. A poet of our own land, who 

 died young, wrote a very musical and cele- 

 brated poem entitled "The Raven." 



In the Norseland fables, two crows are 

 representatives of Mind and Memory. They 

 are named Hugin and Munnin. 



Memory stood on the shoulders of Odin, 

 a mighty god and warrior, and in those 

 countries (Norway and Sweden) the crow 

 or raven has always been regarded as a mes- 

 senger of the King. 



Besides the legend I have related, the 

 people of Siam believe that a crow comes 

 with news. When they hear him caw, the 

 wise ones go into their houses and take a 

 lump of boiled rice, colored red, yellow, 

 blue, or green, which they keep in a basket, 

 and throw it upon the roof. If the cawing 

 bird alights to eat of it, then the master of 

 that house supposes that the crow's tidings 

 are for himself. But he never learns what 

 the message is! He guesses and wonders 

 about it till he is tired. A harmless kind of 

 superstition that may be called. 



It is true that ravens will carry off bright 

 objects for which they have no use, such as 

 jewelry and small silver articles. Not very 

 long ago a tame raven allowed out of a 

 cage, in Wisconsin, flew down from a branch 

 and grasped in his bill a finger-ring, laid on 

 an outside bench by a woman. He flew far 

 away with the stolen ring, which was never 

 recovered, although Corvus returned to his 

 owner, who finally paid for it. 



Emily Thacher Bennett. 



